


Feats of Strength and Shirtlessness

by Missy



Category: Galavant (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Insecurity, Marriage, Married Couple, Married Life, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 10:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19391914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: How to keep the home fires burning: Galavant style





	Feats of Strength and Shirtlessness

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt, Galavant (TV), Galavant, Off with his shirt

He happened to look very good topless. It was a natural result of nonstop work upon the back of a horse, he’d tell anyone – especially Isabella – when he was asked questions. It was simply a gesture toward the simplicity of his masculine beauty, he’d say.

These questions were often accompanied by a flex of his arm, just to assert his attractiveness. He would also occasionally wink, which let the woman know he was in on the joke he was making of his life.

Isabella told him he was being ridiculous. “I would love you if you had no muscles at all,” she said, and told him to put a shirt on before he caught cold.

*** 

Galavant didn’t particularly enjoy keeping his shirt on, honestly – even in the winter, when they were cozy in their beach house, snuggled by the fire. “You are the worst show-off I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said, as he posed by the fire, his teeth gleaming and his beard well-trimmed.

“And you find my showing off attractive,” he pointed out. He might have been sucking his gut in just a bit. Posing – with his arms flexed. 

Isabella shook his head. “You are going to drive me over the wall,” she informed him. A friendly warning. He took heed of it. He wore a shirt when he was outdoors for her sake. If only because she was so afraid he’d end up with frostbite on his nipples.

*** 

He did show off for her – if he was going to be fully honest about his behavior. Carrying heavy things always had a tendency to draw her eyes. So he carried bales of hay and oversized buckets of water all just to draw her eye and make her want him. He was happy to urge her into wanting him. Anything to keep the homefires burning would be worthwhile – like throwing fat tallow onto the fire, he’d been prepared and ready for her eager eyes and her drooling mouth.

“I don’t drool when I look at you,” Isabella said. She punched the bread dough and turned it over as Galavant finished gutting the fish he’d caught a few feet away.

“You drool! I drool at you! We’re a flock of Saint Bernards when we see one another, aren’t we?”

Isabella shook her head at him in total disgust. “Why are you so worried about the two of us being attracted to each other?”

“But I’m not!” he said. But Galavant was thinking of Roberta and Richard, still lovey-dovey and sweet on one another after two years. He was worried Isabella might someday decide she’d made a horrible choice choosing to be with him – for not choosing a prince, handsome and true, with a crown and a pedigree. But she didn’t seem to regret it, yet.

It was his job to keep her from doing so.

** 

Isabella didn’t have any idea why Galavant was so insistent upon proving that their love life was still toasty. Two years in and she had absolutely no complaints. Did he think she had complaints?

Had she not made it obvious that she had none at all?

The man was, as always, the most vexing creature on this or any other planet. She loved him dearly, but he had a way of acting before asking questions. In battle and in a crusade, those were helpful things. In trying to live an ordinary life that required careful communication, not so much. 

Isabella liked the life they’d picked. A princess in name, if not in life, scrubbing clothing and cooking meals and foraging for food at his side all felt like a better fit than the life of a royal. She too was a born quester, intended to roam the earth doing necessary and important work at Galavant’s side. It was her job to defend the defenseless of Valencia and Hortensia. If she had been born a knight, she would have already been the favorite of the kingdom.

But this was a double act – triple, when Sid was in town and not off on his own hero’s journey, but he was not an intimate part of their marriage, naturally. Marriage was a duality, a carefully-handled sword. A small kingdom in which they ruled together instead of separately. If the desire she carried for him had faltered, she would have surely told him. But it was nowhere near being gone. He was a perfect husband – and an excellent lover.

And yet it was always ‘off with his shirt!’ And yet he always felt the need to show off for her. She found it sweet, but honestly – he didn’t need to go to the trouble at all. All he had to do was be helpful and wonderful. By nature, he was both.

*** 

She pulled him aside and walked him right to the ocean. “You do realize I love you? Self-rescuing though I am, I’ll always need you. Even if your chest gets…less firm…”

“…Saggy, you can say saggy,” he said.

“And if your hair goes grey or falls out…”

“Is it falling out?” he worried.

“Please listen to me,” she demanded.

He stood still and watched her. “We’ve been married for three years now. In all that time, have I ever considered you unworthy of my…thrills?”

“No,” he said.

“And have you ever looked at another woman?”

“No!”

“Then you don’t need to worry about showing off for me! Just do what you always do and you’ll make me exceedingly happy.”

He smirked at her proclamation. “Princess, you do have a way of making me feel completely worthy without even lifting a finger?”

She laughed and shook her head. “It’s magic at work,” she declared. “Accept the good news and grow old with me.”

That was when she began to sing. And he joined her in the melody. They would grow old together. They would, for better or for worse, know one another’s joys and faults and deal with and celebrate them to the best of their abilities.

And no wizard – no curse – no kidnapping plot or arranged marriage – not even the rigors of old age – would ever pull them apart.


End file.
